Deleon’s fate in jurors’ hands

When considering whether to recommend a man be put to death, which is more important: how a killer took his victims’ lives, or what in that person’s childhood made him a killer?

In its simplest form, that is what jurors in the capital murder case of Skylar Deleon, 29, are being asked. Should Deleon be sentenced to death for suckering a blind-folded man into the desert in 2003 and slashing his throat after stealing his $50,000 and nearly a year later sending a Newport couple to the bottom of the Pacific, attached to an anchor alive, to steal their boat? Or should he be sentenced to life without parole, on account of the consistent physical, emotional and sexual abuse his father subjected him to growing up, as the defense contends?

Twelve jurors will begin deliberating on that question this morning after prosecutors and defense attorneys gave their closing arguments Tuesday on why or why not Deleon should face the ultimate punishment.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy initially focused his argument on undercutting the defense’s argument, mainly, that Deleon’s late father, John Jacobson Sr., was somehow responsible for creating the now frail, slumped-shouldered man sitting at the defendant’s table during the trial. Several of Deleons’ relatives testified during the penalty phase that he was beaten and berated by his drug-dealing father for the slightest imperfection, and possibly molested.

“Babies are not born murderers. They have to be turned into them,” said defense attorney Gary Pohlson. “We don’t know what we would’ve done, if we were raised the way Skylar was. We all hope we wouldn’t commit horrible crimes. But we don’t know. What kind of person is this John Jacobson Sr.? He’s the kind of person that could turn another into a killer.”

“I’m sure there are people in this courtroom who had it a lot worse than this guy, but they didn’t kill anybody. This guy had every opportunity, ladies and gentlemen, to be a productive member of society,” Murphy told jurors. “Does Skylar Deleon get to blame his dad for the decisions he made in murdering a woman begging for her life?”

An accused accomplice of Deleon, Alonso Machain, testified in the trial that Newport Beach couple Tom and Jackie Hawks were duped by Deleon’s story in 2004 that he was a child actor who had money to burn and was looking for a boat for him, his wife and two kids. Machain told jurors that up until the end, Jackie Hawks was crying and begging the couple be spared so they can be with their newborn grandson in Arizona.

After subduing the couple on their boat, the Well Deserved, Deleon forced the couple to sign over legal power and access to their bank accounts under the guise they would be spared, Machain testified. Instead, he sailed farther out and tied them to an anchor and threw them overboard.

“How do you cry and hold your breath at the same time? How do you swim handcuffed behind your back? Ladies and gentlemen, the great debate has been settled. This is the worst possible way you can die,” Murphy said. “We talk about well deserved. What’s well deserved here ... is capital punishment.”

Pohlson hammered his argument that while Deleon had a choice, in the end he is a product of a drug- and abuse-filled, childhood where he moved from home to home with his mother, step-mother and aunt.

“Skylar Deleon did not choose that life. He was a captive in that life,” Pohlson said. “I want him to sit in jail for 50 years or whatever, to never get out. He was not born a murder. He did not choose when he was a little, tiny kid to be born a murderer ... Go back, say your prayers, do whatever makes you do the right thing. I know you will. Please, don’t give him the death penalty.”

Murphy asked jurors to imagine what it would be like to know you were going to die, and to think of the smallest details in this crime when thinking of Deleons’ fate. For example, when Jackie Hawks signed her documents before dying, she deliberately kept the S off her last name, or that in his helplessness, Tom Hawks stroked his wife’s hand to calm her.

“Imagine the regret that he felt at that moment when he realized the woman he loved so much was at the mercy of a bunch of thugs and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Imagine that. All he could do was stroke her hand,” Murphy said. “When [Jackie Hawks] signs those documents, she left that S off. She left that S off ... She sends out a flare to the future. With that moment that woman was hoping that at some moment, someone was going to make this right. Police can investigate, I can prosecute, but ladies and gentlemen, she was talking to you.”

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.